A diminished South Whidbey cross country team traveled to Yakima for the Sunfair Invitational this past weekend.

Both teams ran short-staffed of the allotted seven spots. The boys team had five runners and the girls team had six. The race lived up to its name as the temperature climbed into the 80s.

The meet was run in flights, all teams’ number seven runners compete in one race, then the number six runners and so on.

The girls team placed fifth in the 1A and 2A division. Keely Craig placed fifth for the Falcons in Flight 3 in 20 minutes, 27.3 seconds. Teammate Lillianna Stelling placed 14th in Flight 5 and ran the fastest time for South Whidbey in 20 minutes, 19.9 seconds.

Based on Saturday’s results, the girls team moved into this week’s 2A state coaches poll for the first time this year, at number six. The top two boys runners for South Whidbey, Ben Saari and Will Zink, returned from illness and injury. Both ran in the 18s and Jhamil Bader-Jarvis had a career best 3-mile time of 19 minutes, 9.3 seconds.